


In My Castle, I Am King

by Hectopascal



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (2014), Guardians of the Galaxy - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-07
Updated: 2014-09-07
Packaged: 2018-02-16 13:34:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2271675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hectopascal/pseuds/Hectopascal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kink Meme Prompt:</p>
<p>So I refuse to consider that Peter’s life with the Ravagers was horrible. I headcanon that Peter was the team’s little brother and spoiled rotten by Yondu and possibly Kraglin. I realize this is highly unlikely, but I don’t care. That’s what fanfiction is for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In My Castle, I Am King

—

Peter doesn’t twitch when his cot sinks beneath a sudden influx of weight. He’s pretending to be asleep really hard and he doesn’t intend to give the ruse up even if it isn’t much of one. He may not twitch but he can’t help but think that the lurch in his stomach shows on his face somehow. It has to. It feels like a black hole twisted up in his intestines, dragging his whole being into one, infinitesimally tiny, spot, atom by painful atom.

A hand rests on his head. The touch is careful, light, and familiar. It makes the sucking a dozen times worse. Peter turns his face into the pillow, doing his level best to make the movement look natural, trying to bury his red-rimmed eyes away from sight. If they find out he actually _cried_ over such a stupid…oh, that won’t be good. Not at all.

“Kid.”

Peter scrunches his eyes harder and his hands — one under the pillow, the other tucked up against his chest — make an aborted jerk like they want to ball into fists, but remember at the last second that he’s supposed to be sleeping.

“ _Peter_.” Yondu’s voice is terribly similar to his fingers as they card through Peter’s hair in a manner that is soft, but insistent. Pay attention, that voice and those fingers say, because we are not going away.

(Which is a damned _lie_. That’s the whole problem.)

“Peter, what’s got you all riled up?” Yondu asks, moving a too-long strand of hair behind Peter’s ear and Peter can’t stop himself from leaning into it, just a little. He can hear a smile the way Yondu huffs at his childish behavior and he knows it’s one of the special kind, nice and reassuring, and not a shark-like baring of Yondu’s sharp teeth, the affectionate smile that only Peter gets to see and only very rarely.

The hand moves from Peter’s hair to the back of his neck, giving a steady squeeze. “Well? I can’t fix it if I don’t know, now can I?”

Peter thinks, _screw it_ , and gives up. He makes the effort, though. He gets his arms around Yondu and his head in the man’s lap and presses his face to his side, but he’s too slow. He can tell by the way Yondu’s goes still, _snake-predator-hunting_ still, even as he rubs comforting circles on Peter’s back. Peter rarely feels anything but completely safe when he’s right next to Yondu and there’s a reason for that.

“Why you been cryin’, boy?” The question, when it comes as Peter knew it would, is quiet. Calm. He’s not fooled. For a second, he considers ignoring it, but decides against it almost instantly, simply shaking his head and clutching at Yondu that much tighter. He doesn’t want to talk about it. He doesn’t want to know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that it’s true. He doesn’t want, period.

“Peter.” Yondu says his name flatly and he reads whole conversations in it. Demands that will never be made and reassurances that will never be voiced and a simmering rage that has never been turned anywhere near Peter’s person, even when he (kinda, mostly, maybe) deserves it.

Peter finds himself mumbling, thick with an accent that’s faded with time because abruptly he’s so homesick it aches. He misses his mom and Earth and his house and food that looks like food and so many other things that he can scarcely think of them all to name.

He doesn’t want that deep hurt — that never goes away, not ever — to expand, to include his cot and the silly soft blanket Kraglin had picked up for him somewhere after he awkwardly confessed to being cold, the way the Ravager ship hums underfoot with a steady vibration of the massive monstrous engines, the stars blurring as they warp past, Kraglin and the rest of Peter’s almost-family, and especially not Yondu.

Peter thinks the last would be the worst and most painful of all. But it’s gonna happen sooner or later, without a doubt, and Peter should just accept it and be happy for the time he does have but he can’t, he _can’t do it_ , and now Yondu’s fretting over him like he cares and it’s wrong and right mixed up, blended together. Indistinguishable when Peter wants things to be clear cut, black and white because that would be better. Right?

“Ah wanna stay.” Peter bites his lip. Stupid. Why did he say that?

“And what makes you think you’re goin’ anywhere?” Yondu retorts, scoffing. His hold tightens just imagining it. “What makes you think I’d even _let you_ , hmm?”

Peter can’t stop himself. Really can’t. “Horuz said – ”

Yondu makes a curious sound — somewhere between a sharp click and a _tch!_ — which Peter doesn’t have the chance to ask about before Yondu’s dragging him up so he can look him dead in the eye. Peter fights the urge to squirm in place because there is something in the hard gleam to Yondu’s red irises that suggests he is Not Best Pleased.

“Oh, ho. And just _what_ did Horuz say?”

Peter determinedly stares over Yondu’s shoulder at the far wall. His cot is wedged between a wall and Yondu’s (much more impressive) bed. Peter thinks he might be the only person to see the inside of Yondu’s personal quarters and live to speak of it. Apparently, it’s so Yondu can keep an eye on him. Peter’s not sure he believes this.

(He thinks he’s more inclined to believe that it’s because of the first week. His nightmares had been so bad that Yondu had told him to quit disturbing the crew, grab his things, and follow him. And he’d slept in Yondu’s room ever since. Sometimes, on the really bad nights, he crawls into Yondu’s bed and while he’s sure that Yondu is physically incapable of sleeping through that, he’s never made Peter leave.)

These are the things he would rather think about than answer that loaded question. _What did Horuz say?_

Well, Yondu, Peter might potentially reply, Horuz says a lotta things.

But the most recent had been by far the worst.

Most of the crew likes him well enough. They joke and play and makes sure he gets enough to eat. They’ll ruffle his hair and explain things Peter’s never seen before and sometimes it feels like he’s being treated like a particularly endearing pet or a mascot. There are worse things.

Peter suspects he _is_ a worse thing and nobody but Horuz ever bothered to tell him.

Horuz does not like him though, not one bit, and the feeling is mutual. He gives Peter the creeps, always staring at him and making little nasty sly comments about his person and wondering out loud how Terran tastes like it’s some kind of joke but Peter knows that he means it. Given half a chance and the guarantee that Yondu won’t violently retaliate, Horuz would cheerfully punt him out of an airlock or into an oven, whichever happened to be closest at the time.

Peter worries that one day Yondu will get sick of him and let it happen.

Yondu had told him three days ago that they were heading to a little backwater planet called Allium, where one of the locals had put out a request for somebody to do some thieving on their behalf. What he had not mentioned — but Horuz had — is that Allium is a planet that still condones a system of slavery.

It’s gross and wrong and kinda scary — he had learned about it in school back when he still…went to school — but Peter doesn’t know what that has to do with him. At least, he doesn’t until Horuz grins at him and laughs. _Finally going to get rid of you_ , he crows victoriously, _kept this cargo long enough. Terran’ll fetch a hefty price, you know, being a rare breed and all._

And Peter would have argued, really, but it makes a horrible sort of sense and Horuz had sounded so sure of himself and Peter panics. Yondu won’t sell him, will he? He won’t just— He can’t— Peter had pulled his blanket over his head like he could hide from the awfulness of the thought and it had almost been working and then Yondu had found him.

“Peter, what did he say?” And there he is, still waiting for an answer, as patient as he’s capable of being.

“Am I cargo?” Peter blurts out, unable to keep the desperate plea behind his teeth where it belongs. Yondu looks, for a split-second, taken aback and that doesn’t help. There’s more and more words bubbling up and Peter can’t stop it any more than he can go back in time and take his mom’s hand. “Cuz Horuz said that I was gonna get sold and I dun wanna, I wanna stay with you – ” His hands go to Yondu’s wrists and can’t wrap more than half-way round. “I wanna _stay_.”

Yondu’s eyes narrow. “That’s what this is about? Boy, you think I’ma get rid of you?”

Peter sniffs, looks away, and doesn’t answer. It’s telling enough.

Yondu sighs like Peter’s an enormous chore, turns him around and pulls him back against his chest. It’s less a hug and more of a very solid _hold_ , his arms cross over Peter’s shoulders and he’d be hard pressed to get away if he felt even the slightest inclination to try.

“Picked you up because I felt like it,” Yondu explains shortly. “An’ I kept you because I felt like it. I want you here and you want to be here, so I don’t see no problem. Do you?”

Peter shakes his head. No. Not if Yondu means it really and truly.

“An’ don’t go listenin’ to Horuz no more,” Yondu continues. Muttered against the top of Peter’s head, “Gon’ have ta have a word with him about who runs this damn ship.”

Peter giggles and his fears melt away like shadows exposed to direct light. There’s nothing to be afraid of. Yondu is the strongest person in the world and he’s in charge and if he says Peter can stay because he wants to, then everything is fine.

Everything is fine. Peter is happy and safe and he has a _home._

(for now, at least.)


End file.
